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whipping post

It has been a busy few weeks, just a quicky update for you all. Pop in if you are interested.

First up, I spent some time and managed to re-open the #YTMND irc channel on Efnet, so pop in and say hello if you have nothing better to do.

Second up, I've started a quick "blog" on blogger.com which I am going to use as the YTMND "Development Blog". I try not to post news here unless I actually have news, but I am constantly looking for feedback and ideas on new features, and I know a lot of you don't bother reading the technical jabber on here, so for those of you interested on how the back end of YTMND works or the technical details of new features. Additionally I can post status updates if for some reason YTMND goes down or becomes unreachable.

Another thing of note is that I plan on releasing the source code to the new Flash template shortly before it goes live. I'm hoping the few of you who are interested will play with it, or even improve the code. I am out of my element as far as Flash goes, so I'm sure I'm doing a lot of silly things in there.

Feature-wise I am pretty satisfied with the Flash template, so I've started the incredibly arduous task of converting millions of files over to formats digestable by Flash. I wrote about it in more detail on the "dev blog", once that finishes off, I will do a beta test of the new template sans-ads for you all to play with.

Also I am re-running the featured algorithms and incorporating a bunch of manual changes by BTape and Teknorat so expect to see some changes on that list in the coming days.

Finally, I am still looking for a solid designer to make a new design for YTMND. I've received a few design comps, but nothing yet that really popped out. If you or anyone you know is a good web designer, shoot me an email at max at ytmnd.com and I will send you all the details. This would be paid work and would earn you some bragging rights, as well as looking good on a portfolio.

I have a lot of respect for Senator McCain, although I don't agree with all of his policies, I think he would be a good president. However, he is old, and Palin could become president, and that worries me. Obama could be okay, but he could also be the next Jimmy Carter. And don't say McCain would be four more years of Bush, that is idiotic.

Nah. I don't think mccain would mean four more years of Bush, he isn't quite as stupid. I just can't trust a president who constantly contradicts himself, and slanders his competitors. Of course I'm not too fond of Biden either. And Obama could turn out to be an *ssh*le too that doesn't do anything that he has promised. Meh.

In fact, we should be weaning ourselves off our oil dependence altogether. I mean, look at what it has gotten us into. Do you really think the Iraq war would have been necessary or even considered if they didn't have any oil over there? If our intention was to bring democracy to other nations with oppressive regimes, why aren't we sending troops to Africa?

Since there are changes on the way to the featured users list, can I once again make the suggestion to create a category on the front page that would be sites created by non-featured users, recommended by featured users? Preferably something that would give sites that had a rough go in Recently Created a second chance? It would be a nice way to offset the (perceived) elitist featured section, and give us featureds a chance to give back as it were.

Of course you'd have to A. police the list for favortism (and alts to a certain degree), and B. ensure there weren't a lot of duplicates between this new list and U&C, so I understand it might be more trouble than it's worth.

I have been thinking of a few changes to the featured users list. I was thinking of splitting it up between "legendary users" and "featured users", legendary users are people who have been around a long time, made lots of good content or hof sites etc. "Featured users" would then become a more volatile list and the current algorithm would only take the last few months into account, so users would constantly be added or removed, as well as possibly suggested by other users.

Let me ask a question that I've been meaning to ask for a while, but have been scared of being called a noob/f*g for. WAFFLEZ is korf41 right? Did korf41 get banned and made a new account called WAFFLEZ or does he post on the forums or IRC with korf41 or something? That has just always confused me.

But I think the problem is you're viewing featured status as some kind of reward or incentive: Make good sites, and you'll be rewarded with featured status (and/or planit statis). But if you use the featured list as some kind of carrot on a stick, then once someone achieves featured status they have no motivation to continue making good content. You're not highlighting the good content of today, you're rewarding the good content of yesterday, which is not the same thing.

It wasn't my intention to make featured status any sort of carrot on a stick, it just ended up that way. I assumed that users who created good content in the past were most likely going to continue to do so in the future, for a few users this is not the case and they should be removed, but I think a lot of the users on the list are solid. My suggestion above about shortening the algorithm to a smaller more recent time period rather than forever would keep it much fresher than it is now.

And one of the reasons it is abused now is that a lot of people are manual additions and don't get removed quickly enough when they start pouring garbage onto the front page. I really do want to make something that would allow everyone to recommend featured content for the front page, I just don't know how it should work. I miss the high-rated-but-not-necessarily-new content box.

Highlighting good content=good idea. Highlighting only recently made content just because they're by users that have made good sites in the past=bad idea. Here are two alternatives: Rework the Worthwhile Section to highlight good old sites that have say a 4.0 rating or more. It would be a randomized list and update every half hour or so... OR (and?) replace Featured Users section with Favorite Users, so the users themselves decide which recently created sites would appear.

I dunno. I say this w/o knowing exactly what the algorithm is, but I think all that will change is, rather than having the same sh*tty featured users over and over, now there'll be a rotating cavalcade of sh*tty featured users. The fleeting nature of the list might make people even more prone to spamming crap: A guy could fall *ss backwards into two or three highly rated sites in a row and next thing you know it's "OMG I'M FETURD NOW BUT ONLY 4 A MOTH I BETTR MAKE TEH MOST OF IT NJOY THEZ 20 MOONMAN SITEZ"

I actually always kind of liked the idea of a featured user's section as a sort of list of max's favorite guys on the site - but at the same time I could understand the need to handle blatant abuse of the section and promote good content by the average user.

Algorithms aren't very good judges of who makes good content. While I doubt it will ever completely filter out terrible users, I think it could improve a lot, but I'm the only one working on it, so like everything else it is getting a lot less TLC than it needs.

"Isn't that more or less how the worthwhile YTMND box works already Ocho?" http://ytmnd.com/browse/worthwhile Not really, most of the sites there are around a 3.7 rating, so it pretty much has the same effect as the featured users section on a good day.

But max, you could come up with the most brilliant algorithm ever conceived by man, it's still futile of you to try to come up with a system that tries to predict where good content is going to come from in the future. I just think you'd be better off implementing a system that would allow users to go and find good content for you. In addition to the voting system of course, which has its inherent flaws.

How about I just give you a list of people who should be featured? I'm here enough to know the good users from bad. The ones who actually try to make original content versus those who just fad whore to get high ratings. I'm sort of kidding, but I think it would be better if you let a few trusted people like BTape or Teknorat select the featured users than an algorithm.

I only ever communicate with users via comments/news posts, for most of the day to day I discuss stuff in the ytmnd dev irc chat, I would be very pleased if more people idled in there and popped in to partake in discussions. Featured users was something I made in an evening after talking with ROY4L briefly.

It's always been apparent to me that you could use help running the site on an involved, day-to-day basis because it's not a one man job. I'm liking greenscreen's idea of having a few trusted members who could look after things.

Since I can't tell if gr33nscr33n is being sarcastic about braxton or not (signs point to yes), I do want to say that there is that whole DarthWang/AegisReflector subculture (or even the slightly more refined MurdarMachene torch that Goneja has been carrying) that absolutely deserves a certain amount of recongition on the site. I mean there are users who are really great at that kind of site, I'd argue it's a lot harder than it seems to do that kind of site well. (cont'd)

I wonder if it would help to have some kind of "junkyard" section -- kind of like the way ytmnsfw used to be -- that helps the best of those sites get seen, while sequestering them away from the rest of the site for the sake of people who really, really hate them. Just like there's a nsfw tag, there could be some kind of tag that recommends a site be sent to the heap.

What you are describing is a good example of how groups would be effectively used. There is a subset of the user base which loves "moon man" sites, and a (much larger I think) subset which despises them. The question is how do we show content to the general public that they will most likely enjoy, while still offering users enough customization to see what they want if it differs.

Also, I was reading your the dev blog, please no Flash. It's damned old fashioned, but we should stick with GIFs. Maybe MNG, maybe. But if you let Flash on YTMND, what will be next MOV, AVI, or god help us, MP4. There's already very little keeping us apart from YouTube and/or Newgrounds (*cough*keaton*cough*).

As someone who has worked with flash since 2000, I would certainly agree that flash has a number of design flaws. Only recently did it gain features which it severely lacked for years. However, I am not sure I know what you mean when you say that there are only certain things that can be done with the IDE. Are you referring to making a .swf file without the IDE?

The template is a static SWF which loads an XML file in to figure out information about a specific site and then it loads the sound and image from URLs it gets in the XML file. Loading an animated GIF at run-time treats it like any other static picture and only shows the first frame. When you load a GIF into the IDE while you are making an SWF it splits it up into each frame.

Actually, imageMagick might not be necessary. I just found this: http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/2073.html
I suppose when the user uploads their animated gif, you could use this php code to convert it to a swf file.

Hello everyone. Just flew back from Hurricane IKe, and let me tell you the warter damage down there -its just tremendous. Theres babies and dogs and elderlies suffering while these lookie lous and intrepid newsmen survey all the flotsam and jetsam. That said, i gota baby :-{o

Damnit. Max only reads the first handful of comments posted on the news section. So I can't have an opinion :(. Actually I dont have much of one anymore since I don't make any more sites :(. ... Ochobobo if you recieve this message would you like to play some isketch? Also keaton how about some super smash bros together? You're invited to isketch aswell.

Remember when it meant something get a rating higher than a 4.5? Now it happens all the time. Max, I know you're busy with the Flash thing, but I think the you need to change the settings for the U&C when you're done. The U&C is stagnant with the same 5 sites ruling it every 5 days, not to mention they are ruling the weekly top rated. I think it's time to drop the time a site stays on the U&C to 72 hours. I don't know the exact time it is set now, but the Ray Charles site has been on there for five days.

72 hours along with the weekly top viewed should give everyone a chance so see everything. I've always felt the front page, and YTMND, benefits with regular rotation. It isn't happening now. Also, it's time to add these sites to the Hall of Fame: http://youmakemetouchyourhandsforstupidreasons.ytmnd.com/ http://pi.ytmnd.com/

but then the sites won't get the 350 votes usually needed to get off Up and Coming. Top Rated would probably then turn into what Top Viewed has become, and then pretty much decrease the overall activity on the site. Remember when the vote limit for UaC was 500? Sites seemed to stay on the section then as long as they do now. I guess we lost some users since then or something. If we got some more users to join the site then it would probably fix it and get sites off UaC sooner. ...

I know new people can be pretty annoying most of the time, but settling only for a decreased time limit seems to just accept the fact that the site is unpopular without any resolve to fix it. We should be talking about completely reworking HoF instead of blindly adding sites with a lot of views. Put those overviewed sites in some invisible section that only max can see, so they won't get any more attention than necessary.

Most sites don't get up to the 350 votes in the five days they are on the U&C. Before it was 500 votes it was 300. YTMND is becoming unpopular as it is. I'm just getting sick and tired of seeing the same sites on the U&C all week. It's always the same sites on the U&C, top viewed, weekly top rated. Now we're luck if more than 200 people are here during the peak times when it was 300 earlier this year and 1,000 in early 2007.

As far as the HoF goes, I agree with you and have offered up my own ideas., but until Max changes it the HoF is what it is. Those two sites have been on the top 15 fairly consistently for the past 90 days. It could also be argued that they both belong there legitimately. Pi has always been popular and the Dramatic Reading did start a new and popular fad.

Yeah, I remember 300 votes, and really the problem is still that there are not enough people. Maybe when the new flash-based site system is released, and/or when the new layout is released it would attract some more people! Too bad hoping for a change like that anytime soon is just wishful thinking

There have always been idiots posting stupid crap since the beginning. That hasn't changed. The Moon Man fad is pretty horrible and with how fast a few dedicated users are pumping them out an hour it is not helping things. Still, people were jumping ship long before Moon Man and long before Raymond.

no way i'm reading all them posts so i was wondering if we will be able to embed ytmnd's on some forums (like youtube) and also have a button to make them start playing/pause them (i hate it when you load a page then open another window waiting for gay n*gg*rs or w/e crap it is to pop up unannounced... this button is also similar to youtube) also how about being able to select related ytmnd's after viewing the embedded on (like youtube) in fact f*ck it just turn the site into youtube as it works okay... :)